supernatural

It was fitting, given her name, and moreso when you considered the age-old human superstition of black cats and their associated power. She didn't actually have any otherworldly powers (unless you counted her dallying about in the Dark Forest and the supersenses which would one day leave her blind and deaf, but that was another matter entirely) but the moniker seemed to fit, especially given the sheer amount of tragedy that followed her. From her interactions with Shadowclan as a child to the recent death of her daughter and everything in between.

It really was too bad.

But now she was in Thunderclan, and with her remaining children cared for (left in the combined care of Acornfall and Hab), the medicine cat was doing her best to be somewhat productive. The medicine cat den wasn't hers, but she could contribute anyways. That's why she slunk in, quiet as a mouse so to speak, a gathering of moss in her crooked jaw that she intended to leave as a gift to the Thunderclan medicine cat and apprentice. It had been moss today, cobwebs yesterday, and some nice splinting sticks the day before. She was pretty sure she was being subtle.

Or maybe there were just ghosts in her head? Supernatural wasn't sure she could tell the difference anymore, but in the quiet spaces between tragedy and throwing herself into work, she imagined the silhouette of a calico cat with blue eyes in the corners of her den.

Patchpaw didn't have to speak to her, didn't try to touch her. Instead, they sat together in silence. Silence when they first met. Silence when they bonded, silence when Superkit had returned without a single drop of childhood left in her too-young body, hardened by training and cruelty. But it wasn't cruel, their silence. It wasn't.

It started a few days ago, with the restlessness of sleep. Sometimes being hounded by demons, figurative and otherwise, wore down on a person. For Supernatural, her entire life had been full of hell. Raising it. Running from it. She could count on one paw the number of people still around from her childhood. Ed was gone. Pond. Squeakpaw. Pyre. People came and went, and still in the medicine cat den that she had long since been sleeping in, long since been caring for, she wasn't home. She was a visitor. And maybe it was because Acornpaw was, for once, not immediately shadowing her that she finally sighed and turned her head to look towards the fuzzy silhouette in the corner of her eye.

"It's getting hard to work with you distracting me."

She murmured, as if afraid of her own words. When she turned, she locked eyes with Patchheart, no older than the day she left, no less ethereal. Fake, yes, but real enough that Nat felt her flesh chill uncomfortably.

"I can't exactly leave," teased the apparition, although not without an apology already in her eyes. Supernatural sighed, and set aside the herbs she'd been counting.

"I know. You're not even really here."

She wished she didn't sound so... lost when she said it. Quiet. There had been a time, once, when all Supernatural had been was quiet and lost. She had gone so long with only her pantomimes and her constricting throat, and she feared it. But every day she feared certain things even more than the loss of control, the fear that had dogged her every step as a child. There was a fear now. It gripped her, and made her close her pale eyes, shutting out the hallucination before her.

She could feel her there still.

"I know. If I was real, I'd probably know what to do."

Another unspoken apology and Nat shook her head. She'd once been told that she didn't deserve to be in pain, she didn't deserve to be hurt. She wondered now if that still held. Probably not. She'd been a child at the time, confused and angry and bitter but without understanding. Now she was the same, but with a bone-deep acceptance of her own consequences.

"It's not your fault."

She replied, carrying on the conversation with the image before her that looked so much like their former medicine cat and her soft eyes, the mottled pattern of tabby, orange, and white that had marked her in mixes. Patchheart had always been... radiant. Even before Supernatural had understood exactly the sort of budding affection she had felt towards the other. She had wanted to be better for her. And now...

"Now all you have of me is this."

She wouldn't cry. Tears had no place in her anymore, but for the grateful cries she had given to her son just days ago for living. To her father for the same. Yet when her green eyes sought out the blue of the memory, the smiling, kind figment before her, Supernatural felt a burning sensation within her gaze. A younger person would have cried 'it's not fair!' but to be honest, she probably deserved this in some sick way. After all she'd done? Hid murders, committed atrocities, and still...

"You would hate me now."

She informed the image before her, and Patchheart (the thing her mind created that had her face and voice and scent like the sweetest of herbs in the den) shook her head, dismissing the notion immediately.

"I'd forgive you."

"I don't deserve forgiveness."

"Maybe not. I'd still probably give it to you."

Nat sucked in a harsh breath, her mind's imaginings too real for her to deal with, and that's when she admitted it out loud. Out loud for the first time, she finally let her fear be naked before another creature and only then because the Patchheart in front of her was her mind's creation - a pale imitation of the real thing. A ghost.

"I'm scared."

The confession was whispered like a prayer, and her mind's creation remained silent. Even the silence sounded like her. Supernatural's face crumpled, and she bit her lip to keep from crying. Even now. Even with no one around but her demons and her ghosts, the den empty but for the shivering, barely-breathing child in the back of the den, her daughter's thin form wracked by winter's grip. It was too distant for her to acknowledge, because even death didn't scare her as much as this.

"I think I'm losing my mind. Like my mom."

Another breath, the mental image of a stony corpse like her own but faded. She hadn't witnessed her mother's death. Riverclan had lied to her in order to protect her and let her live just a little bit longer as a child. Did Hollow know? Did her father know the monster that had lived inside his mate? Supernatural had never asked. She had been young when she came to Riverclan. Young and without context enough to understand that parents didn't leave their children for days on end, that mothers weren't supposed to scream or shove their children too hard. She had been too young to recognise the illness in her mother and now she was so frightened by the same grips that illness held in her own mind.

She opened her eyes.

Patchheart was gone. The grief in her lungs silenced her before she could even whimper, and Supernatural closed her eyes. She tried to think of anything but the fate that she feared awaited her, anything but the growing madness and lack of understanding. It was too late to save her mother. Too late to confess to Patchheart. Too late to disturb Hollow - and maybe that last piece is what shook her the most. For all that her father had come to Riverclan with anger and rage and a burning desire to find his daughter, Supernatural had watched him find family here neither of them had expected. And maybe Patchheart had been right. Maybe she was ungrateful and needy. But she would rather suffer her fears quietly, in private, than disturb the man her father had become. A good man. One with a mate. Children on the way. Who was she to disturb that.

Bad omen.

Whispered the demons.

Bad omen.

Called the future, and the medicine cat felt her head ache with the sort of pain she hadn't felt in moons. The familiar prick of anxiety in the back of her skull, the icy chill in her bones. Cold. She hadn't thought about the bad blood and the bad omens for so long, and here they were again like disassembled fish heads staring eyelessly towards her. No, not fish - cat. With no pupils and fur paler than snow. A nameless companion in the night. Her skin crawled. Was it him? His father? She honestly didn't know if the elder one was dead. Or was it just paranoia? Another taste of madness.

In the end, she couldn't tell. But she went to the river to listen to the water and maybe drown out her out mind.

//just a lil oneshot for PLOT ; feel free to post, or not; super is just by the river now being all mopey.

She had thought... well, to be frank, Supernatural had thought that she had made a choice in apprentice that would last longer than this. Northpaw had a grim state about him, a type of attitude that screamed outsider, and she had gravitated towards it with the hope that she could create a place for the outsider. Still, it seemed that her plan had fallen through, and in the middle of winter with a need for all the help she could get, her apprentice just... wasn't fitting his role.

So, unfortunately, she found herself perched before the shell pile, and speaking without any preamble. She was no eloquent speaker, and her father's job was not one she ever considered as something she'd identify with. Supernatural wasn't a speech-giver, so when she yowled with the intention of drawing attention from other Riverclanners, she didn't hesitate to make her announcement.

"Northpaw is relieved of his position as my apprentice. I will choose another when the time comes. That is all."

Supernatural had once told Acorn about how loud the world was. It came up with her griping about how she felt like she hadn't done enough to defend her children. The quiet admission that ever since she had gone missing she had seen the world changed. The struggle to focus on what was in front of her as opposed to what was happening far, far away was something that plagued her constantly. Especially in the moments in between sleep, she was pulled into loud sounds and sensory overload.

But right now, with nothing but the presence of a close friend nearby (and the children being watched by one of her veritable army of babysitters), Supernatural just groaned out loud in the privacy of the wildcat next to her and the den they sat in.

"Dad's about to start flirting with his mate again."

She complained, vaguely annoyed by the notion that she'd have to either focus her attention totally on something or listen to the lovey-dovey nonsense that Hollow and Bright shared. At least she had Acorn to complain to.

Supernatural was leaving camp, and her children, behind in order to attend the medicine cat gathering. It was an exercise in futility for the Riverclan medicine cat -- she was unable to communicate with their spiritual ancestors. Oh yes, she didn't doubt the existence of Starclan, but through her own actions she was cut off from the holy ancestors.

So during these meetings, she tended to begrudgingly chat with the other healers and then sleep next to the moonstone. While she didn't have the ability to chat with their holy ancestors, the proximity to the stone tended to stave off her nightmares and keep the Dark Forest from dragging her kicking and screaming. She didn't sleep well, and after the brutal attack and attempt on her life, well...

The twisted black molly waited towards the entrance of the moonstone. She huffed through her now crooked jaw, which hung awkwardly because of the break early last month. Still, Supernatural's sharp eyes set out against scars both old and fresh, waiting for the arrival of the others.